Milwaukee Wheel Tax

The Common Council is proposing to hit Milwaukee residents with a new fee, (AKA tax).

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports:

A proposed $20-a-year local vehicle registration fee passed its first hurdle Wednesday, winning the endorsement of a Milwaukee Common Council committee.

The council’s Public Works Committee voted 4-1 to recommend adoption of the so-called wheel tax, which would be imposed on more than 330,000 cars and light trucks kept in the city.

If approved by the full council later this month, the fee would raise $6.6 million a year for street work. Slightly more than half of that amount would be used to eliminate special property tax assessments for street repaving and replacement, and to reduce assessments for sidewalk and alley projects.

“We must address the crumbling infrastructure head-on,” council President Willie Hines Jr. told the panel, referring to the deterioration of city streets. “The city assessments are too high, they’re too punitive, they’re too painful to our residents.”

This makes no sense.

According to Hines, city assessments are too high, too punitive, and too painful for residents. He wants no part of a tax increase.

Oh, but a fee, that's different.

Fees aren't punitive. They're not painful. It's not like a fee is a tax.

A $20 fee feels so much better than paying an additional $20 in property taxes.

Yeah, right.

Mayor Tom Barrett is against the fee.

He prefers "small property tax increases over the next six years."

I don't know about that. It sounds punitive to me. Obviously, Barrett doesn't want everyone to pay a vehicle registration fee.

He prefers to punish only certain residents with a tax increase, not all owners of vehicles.